was a better steward of the economy than john mccain in troubled times. romney's got to make that case in 2012. >> little different when you're running against an incumbent. right? there's not a direct parallel there. >> look at the transcript. he was running against president bush. that these set of economic policies are wrong and i have a compelling vision. whether he can do that is another story. >> your colleague e.j. deion wrote journalists are in search of defining moments and game changers. by this standard, romney needs to game changer. obama can live quite happily without one. so do you think that mitt romney needs to have a big moment or if he is perceived to have won will at least give republicans some momentum. is that really the most reasonable thing to hope for? >> well, certainly it will. if the race were sort of fixed in time right now, everybody assumes that obama would win. in many ways that's happening because of early voting all right. so romney needs to change the trajectory in some way. now, that washington post is actually good news for romney in a sense he is winning th

to describe the pathway forward for america we would choose. >> i want to bring in john harwood and e.j. deion, author of "our divided political heart." thank you for coming on. we've been hearing this expectation game being played, the other side trying to make the other one seem as if they are the greatest debater who ever lived. let's start with a reality check and strength and weaknesses of these candidates. let's start with president obama. what is the strength in this debate? >> he's very well informed. he is a fluid speaker. he has served as president. he's got a tremendous amount of information at his command. he doesn't mess up very often. he simply doesn't create the memorable gaffe very frequently, although he's had a couple of things with "you didn't build that" and that sort of thing. >> his weakness? >> his weakness is he can come off as prophesorial and arrogant and long-winded. >> how about you? what do you think about the president? what has he got going for him? >> he should twitter because it would force him into shorter answers. he's got the advantage romney has a bunch of

is veteran members of the house democrats, like john larson and others, have told me they're not going to recover the house in november. that means eric cantor and john boehner are going to stop anything that obama is going to try to do if he gets elected for a second term. that's the key focus. obama is not running with the congressional democrats. he didn't even mention them in his speech in charlotte. this is a politically selfish campaign because he knows he can't get anything done unless the democrats -- >> i've got to let that -- i wish we could do the whole hour -- >> too simple, ralph. great ideas, but too simple. >> carl bernstein, rana, ralph nader, thanks for all of you. and we'll be right back 37. 7. . . >>> mitt romney isn't just reconsidering his comments about the 47%. he's also talking about the nation's top 1%. >> the rich in this country are actually doing better under president obama. the gap between the rich and the poor has gotten larger. the rich will probably do fine even if he's re-elected. >> joining me to talk about this ongoing fight over the 99% versus the 1

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